SINKING OF THE WAIRUNA

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4874, 23 July 1936, Page 7

SINKING OF THE WAIRUNA

WAR-TIME INCIDENT RECALLED.

The fate that befell the freighter Wairuna during the war must have been that suffered by many of Britain’s merchant vessels during those four perilous years. A graphic description of the sinking of the ship has just come to hand, and the methods used in her destruction were

typical of those used against many luckless ships which had the misfortune to cross the tracks of enemy raiders.

On June 2, 1917, the Wairuna, commanded by Captain Saunders, was passing the Kermadac Islands on her way from Auckland to San Francisco, with a cargo consisting of tallow, flax, gum, hides, pelts, and 42 live sheep, the whole valued at a million and a quarter pounds, when a steamer at anchor was sighted six miles off. As there were very few inhabitants on these islands, her situation was peculiar; but the Wairuna had actually passed her, and the suspicions of Captain Saunders and his officers were somewhat allayed, when suddenly a seaplane rose, made for the Wairuna, circled above her, and dropped a weighted canvas bag on the forecastle head. This contained a note calling upon the vessel to steer towards the German cruiser and not to use the wireless or the seaplane would bomb her.

In earnest of her ability to do this, the seaplane dropped a powerful bomb twenty yards ahead of the steamer, after which she flew over the middle of the ship just above the funnel. As the Wairuna was apparently within range of the guns of the other vessel, which was now under weigh, and as Captain Saunders considered that no action of his would affect the final capture of" the ship and that to carry on would cause a useless sacrifice of life, he obeyed the iustructions, and headed his vessel for the other steamer, putting the engines at “slow” in order to have time to throw overboard code books, papers, etc., before being boarded.

A German Raider.

The vessel turned out to be the German raider Wolf, a large steamer with a speed of 10 knots and a crew of 400. She was heavily armed with one 6in gun, two other large guns, two which the size was not known, four 4.7 in guns, an anti-aircraft gun, two large and two small torpedo tubes, and was also provided with the seaplane. Escaping the British patrols (it is said she lay two days under the guns of *H.M.S. Avenger, but was allowed to proceed), she had come round the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, where she sank several vessels, then steered for the south of New Zealand and up the coast to the Kermadecs, where she had been spending some days in an overhaul. A boarding party was put on the Wairuna, and the provisions (of which she had sufficient for her crew for 18 months), the sheep, a portion of the cargo, and 900 tons of coal were transferred to the Wolf, this occupying from June 3 to June 15, the operations being delayed by bad weather. On the 16_th the crew, numbering 42, were removed to the raider, and later in the day the Wairuna, after having been carefully prepared in order to prevent the possibility of any wreckage floating away and thus leaving suspicious traces, was being taken to sea to be sunk, when an American' schooner appeared on the horizon. The seaplane was sent off with instructions to the captain of the schooner to steer for the German vessel, and late in the afternoon she arrived alongside. Difficult to Sink. The following day the Wairuna was sunk; two bombs were placed in No. I hold, one in No. 3 hold, and one in the engine-room. At 8.30 a.m., the Wolf being taken about 100 yards away, one of the bombs was seen to have exploded. The only visible re suit was that the Wairuna sank about a foot deeper in the water, at which level she remained for fully an hour. Then at about 400 yards’ range the Wolf fired several shells into her, but they had very little effect, some striking about the water line and evidently just clearing the engine tops, while others fell short or went clean over the mark. The Wairuna took a slight list, and there was a pause in the firing, but her position did not seem to change. The Wolf steamed right round her, but got no satisfaction, the ship being apparently little damaged. More shots were fired at her amidships, and one brought up a great mass of flame, shooting up from the engine-room, but it died down and still apparently the Wairuna was seaworthy. Then by aiming at the bulkhead between No. 1 and No. 2 holds, the gunners set the cargo on fire. She gradually listed over to port, burning heavily, and eventually turning over on her side, sank at 2.45 p.m. As she went down quite a lot of wreckage broke away from the hatches, and one of the defricks also floated off. It had taken a good six hours and six-

teen heavy shells to dispose of her. The schooner’s crew of 15 was then added to the large number of prisoners already on the vessel, and the schooner was set on fire. The raider waited until she had burned to the water’s edge, and then set a. course to the north-east of New Zealand.